Dowager
by silverfoxpunk
Summary: The Salvatore brothers encounter women who change the course of their lives.  Elena comes to discover the part she will play in both their histories.  Adult material, language, violence and sexual content, particularly in Chapter 3.
1. A Storm Brewing

**I thought you would like a little story to reveal something about Damon and Stefan… so here we go, please let me know what you think.**

**This first part deals with Damon. The second, with Stefan. And the last part… well, wait and see!**

**I hope you enjoy it. And once again, I should say please forgive any dodginess on the part of my American references, as I am a Brit! And also, I can't remember if the vampires can get drunk, so apologies if I have got this wrong – but I am sure you will agree it's a minor point.**

**Oh, and I should add that in this particular story I don't share the opinions of my characters, because some of their opinions suck.**

**Enjoy… it's quite long!**

**Dowager**

**Chapter 1: A Storm Brewing**

He looked out of the window at the moody sky and considered his options. If he ran now, he would never be able to come back and everything he had worked for would be for nothing. If he stayed, there was a real risk that the son would kill him. Death or destitution. He didn't much like those options.

At that moment, the sky lit-up brightly with a sheet of white lighting, followed by a grumble of insistent thunder. Seconds later, the rain began.

Well that solved it for him: he just hated to get his hair wet.

He took a deep breath, popped his cuffs and jogged lightly down the attic stairs towards the dining room, where the ugly sounds of the family fighting rose once again to his ears.

He didn't even pause before opening the door.

"Miss me?" Damon said, throwing them a wink for good measure.

The fist of Donald Critchlow came towards him at speed.

* * *

**Three months earlier**

"Well, if I can't reach it, then I am quite sure no-one else can young man." The shopper straightened to her full height and looked down the length of her nose to the batwing glasses perched on the very tip. "And what's more, I don't appreciate your tone!"

The negro boy scratched his face. He was badly pock-marked from his acne scarred youth; he knew he was always going to be a shelf stacking/backroom kinda guy and never make it onto the cash registers, but wasn't the upside of that supposed to be that he never had to talk to the customers? And she was shaping up to be a real pain in the _posterior_, if you'd kindly mind his language.

He pushed the gum he had been chewing into the gap between the hollow of his cheek and his back molar.

"Ma'am," he started, "I is just saying, that its done like that because my boss done-told me so. And all I is saying, is that's the ways its always been, 's'all."

Damon had overheard the last part of the conversation from the neighboring aisle and thought he would investigate. He was on the hunt here anyway, having found himself fallen on hard times. He liked department stores such as this, they were all called 'Such an such, and Sons', and the higher class they were, the better the hunting. His trick was to find a servant (in a place like this one, they all were), pick the best dressed of them, then follow them home to make mischief. He'd play it by ear dependent on what his needs were at the time, but basically he would take what he needed - whether that consisted of blood from old grandma lying upstairs in her musty bedroom; or seduction of the mother and daughters (maybe both at the same time, like that time in Ohio. Now that was fun).

A family with real money would send their people out in nothing less than their Sunday best, shoes 'n' all. Clothes told you nothing; any show-pony could have a smart bonnet - but look down and you'd see the real shape of things. Some of them had holes in the size of dimes. Shoes were the secret: they told you all you needed to know.

The sound of the voice in the aisle next to him had caught his attention. Here was a woman so unused to shopping for herself, she didn't understand the concept of shelf-stacking. Rather than reach an arm above shoulder height, she complained to the nearest person that looked beneath her status. He could be wrong, but from the tone of her voice he knew there was money there. Even if she had had to fire her staff (which explained why she was here at all), women like her always had money. Most often it was buried deep, their husbands hiding whatever they could get away with from their spouses. But they didn't count on him; he had a nose for those hidden trust accounts, because he thought like them. Downright devious. Hell, oftentimes the women were so grateful, they'd fall right into his arms.

Besides, right now he was kind of between residences, so he had to try something. And she was a widow, he could always tell. They were the best kind.

"Ma'am," he interrupted her request that she speak immediately to the boy's manager, "I couldn't help but overhear your predicament," Damon said, "please, allow me." He reached for the item off the top shelf and handed it to her with just the slightest inclination of his head. She had bristled at first, but now this nice young man was treating her in the way in which she was accustomed and she began to thaw.

"Well, thank you so much, young man. It is nice to see that someone round here has manners." She gazed pointedly at the assistant.

"Oh, now don't you go minding that boy," Stefan said, "he's just some poor unfortunate the manager agreed to help out after his mom died." Damon invented floridly. The boy took this as his opportunity to exit. He didn't know what the heck the stranger was talking about, and nor did he much care. The sooner he could return to the storeroom with crates that didn't answer back, the happier he would be.

"S_yphilis_…" Damon stage-whispered conspiratorially. Eleanor raised her hand to her chest in shock.

"My goodness! That poor unfortunate!.. Oh!" she exclaimed, as she thought suddenly of the boy's face. She whispered back to Damon "The pock-marks…?" He nodded grimly at her.

She looked shocked, then gave the food in her wicker basket a wary eye. "My oh-my." She said almost to herself. "That poor unfortunate…" She repeated, the supposed horror of his young life leading her to think that she would tip him next time (if she ever came back).

Damon leant forward and took her basket from her, which naturally she let him.

"Ma'am," he said "don't you worry about a thing." He took the neatly written shopping list from her hand. "You just let me help you out; I know how these places can be."

"Why, you are such a dear," she said, "but you must tell me your name so I know who to thank."

"Damon Salvatore," he said, "at your service." And gave her a deep bow.

* * *

At her car, she allowed him to pop the trunk and load her bags. He appraised it with a swift glance: a 1952 Pontiac Silver Streak with, if he wasn't mistaken, its original bi-color tires. It was a ruby-red gem of a car, probably never having done more than 8000 kilometers its whole life. With that paintwork, it had to have been kept in a garage the size of a bus. It must have been a labor of love for some chauffeur or another just to keep it on the road, let alone in this condition. It was a prize and worth a pretty penny too he didn't doubt.

Oh, he had fallen on his feet here. He briefly wondered what had happened to the chauffeur, but pushed the thought to the back of his mind. After all, her driving around unaccompanied like this, made things an awful lot easier for him.

"Eleanor," he purred, "don't you tell me you drive this big old car yourself?"

"Why I sure do, Damon." She said proudly, testing out his name and liking the way it sounded. "Ever since my husband died," (bingo!) "I have been forced to - you know just use it to get to the shops, or the club, or some-such. I must confess though, I find it quite hard to handle."

She was just so darn precious.

"Well, you must allow me to drive you home!" he exclaimed, opening the passenger door.

"Oh, no, I couldn't put you out like that!"

"I insist." He frowned. She was about to protest again, when he laid his finger on her lips, looking deep into her eyes. He hadn't needed to compel her yet, but he would if had to. He had to confess he kind of liked doing this old-style, _au naturale_, as it were.

"Well, I just don't know what I did today" she said, "to deserve you." He gave her his warmest smile and she fluttered back at him and got into the automobile. He fused over her hemline before closing the door.

* * *

She had invited him into her home for a cool glass of lemonade, which he knew was a big deal for a widow in her fifties in a gossip-rife town such as this. His sharp eyes had noticed at least half a dozen curtains flicking in the mansions down the street. When she had invited him in, he told her he wouldn't dream of preying upon her kindness any more and that he was honored just to have driven her home. She was quite taken aback and had given him a smile, which damn near broke her face she so seldom used it.

For her part, she was surprised how it made her feel, this handsome man no more in age than her youngest son, standing on her stoop. When he had loaded the last of her bags into her hallway, he had taken his leave with another one of those little bows he seemed so fond of. She was sad that he didn't accept her offer for a beverage and it struck her suddenly that the emotion she was battling with, was loneliness. She hesitated before shutting the door after him and noticed Imelda Mayhew across the street fidgeting behind her curtains, her little yapping lapdog in her arms. Eleanor suddenly felt a sense of childish petulance and stuck her tongue out at her neighbor. Shocked with herself, she quickly slammed the door and rested on it a while. Where on earth had that come from? My word, that young man had made her act in a way which was quite extraordinary.

She dusted down her skirt and resumed her posture.

"Wanda!" she cried out, her voice dropping its silky edge. "Come here immediately and deal with these bags." Feeling aggrieved with her maid without a real reason, she complained to her as soon as she entered the room, "You're getting so old and slow these days!". The maid barely raised her voice as she responded.

"Yes ma'am, I guess I am." She said, as she heaved the heavy paper bags into her arms.

* * *

It was long after midnight when the doorbell tolled. Someone kept ringing it and no matter how often she put her head under the pillow, it would not stop. She was a light sleeper anyway and prone to insomnia, so had only just drifted off (after taking one of her pills). The intrusion was intolerable.

She heard light switches being turned on and footsteps in her hallway, as Wanda finally roused herself and went to answer the door. What was taking that woman so long? Eleanor thought with irritation. She would have to speak to Donald about allowing her to take on someone younger, she was well past her useful life as her maid. If she was only allowed one servant now, by golly, she was going to have a decent one. She was already annoyed at the severe reduction in her staff. My goodness, without Geoffrey alone to look after her car, take care of her lawns and deal with this kind of thing, she felt quite at a loss. It wasn't right not to have a man in the house, not right at all. Geoffrey would have answered the door with a shotgun in his hand. He was reliable like that.

For the merest of moments, she felt a chink of anger mar the otherwise doting affection which she had for her eldest son. These were the cutbacks that he had forced her to make. Her dear departed Raymond would have been ashamed to see her alone in the house this night, with someone, (anyone!), at the door. My goodness, what if they were here to assault or rob her? She knew the coloreds let their pickaninnies roam at night and she wouldn't put this kind of thing past them, no siree.

Before her imagination could run completely riot, she heard Wanda's familiar voice calling out to the stranger behind the door, _"I'm coming, I'm coming. Hold your horses."_ She heard bolts slide back and the safety chain strain as the door was pulled open a crack.

"What d'you want? Raising all kinds of hell when my mistress is asleep in her bed. It ain't no good." Wanda berated.

Eleanor slipped out of bed, reached for her glasses and pulled on her pale-pink quilted robe. She went to her bedroom door and opened it just a crack so she could hear more clearly.

"Mm-hmm… well, I dare say it was your own fault." Wanda replied to a question which Eleanor cursed that she could not hear. Who exactly _was_ it at her door?

"The police department is right down the street." Wanda said firmly. "Now you just get yourself down there and don't you be disturbing decent folk in the middle of the night." She was trying to shut the door on whoever it was, but then suddenly Eleanor could hear the security chain being slipped off and the door being opened.

"Well of course, I guess you _won't_ be long. I can't see as no harm in you making one call." She said. And the stranger's footfall was heard entering the door.

Eleanor couldn't understand what had happened. Wanda had previously sounded adamant, using that tone she saved for hawkers at the door ("_I already told you last week I don't need none of your stolen goods, now off with you before I loose the dog!_"). And now someone was in her house! Her curiosity by far outweighed her fear and she moved to the top of the staircase.

In her hallway, Wanda was closing the door behind Damon Salvatore, who was holding a handkerchief to his bleeding head.

* * *

"Oh my goodness, Damon! What on earth happened?" she said. She rushed down the stairs to him, whilst simultaneously barking orders to Wanda to fetch cloths, warm water and iodine.

The vampire had taken pains to hide a chunk of the rat he had killed in his handkerchief, and he pressed it now to his forehead to make blood flow again. When the iodine arrived, he refused to allow her to tend him and handled it himself, telling her that he didn't want her to have to deal with anything so gruesome. When she rushed from the room to make him some sweet tea, he gave Wanda a smile. She looked back at him with narrowed eyes and as much silent disapproval as she could muster. He hoped she wasn't going to be a problem.

* * *

In the kitchen, Wanda took over from Eleanor, who was fretting herself trying to boil a kettle on a hob she didn't know how to light. Wanda tried not to notice that her mistresses was looking at her reflection and fixing her hair by whipping out the bobby pins that kept her curls in place whilst she slept. Eleanor caught her looking and gave her one of her stares that meant 'watch yourself' and so the elderly maid returned to making the tea and minding her own.

* * *

"I am so sorry for upsetting your household and preying upon your hospitality so late at night," he began when she returned to the room, but she brushed his apologies away with a generous sweep of her hand, "but truly, I could think of nowhere else to go."

He noticed she had pinched her cheeks so they would take on the appearance of being rouged and her hair bounced now it was free from bobby pins.

"Well, I am just so glad you came to me, Damon." She replied wholeheartedly, realizing how true that was. "But my, I must look a frightful mess!" she said with mock modesty.

"Quite the contrary." Damon flattered, allowing his eyes to linger on her décolletage a moment longer that was entirely appropriate. He thought he timed it rather well when she blushed like a virgin on prom night.

He smiled a slightly pained smile, as if to say 'I'm truly sorry for the inconvenience' and then began his invented story, the lies tripping from his tongue as easily as the sweet tea she poured for him.

And after half an hour had passed, she offered to have Wanda make up the spare room for him because she would not 'send him back out into the wilderness' at this time of night.

She was quick to catch on, this one. That would make it easy.

* * *

She had been easy to flatter: she was lonely, as all women were without someone to berate. Her husband had died just six months before and she told him that her eldest son, Donald, was good enough to take over her affairs, as she had no head for numbers. He gathered quickly that Donald was an opportunistic, capricious little bastard, who could see a way to make money from his mother's misfortune. He had immediately and cleverly reduced her expenditure by getting rid of what he saw as extraneous house staff and simultaneously reduced her allowance to a bare minimum. He paid for her club and the upkeep of her house - just enough to keep up appearances - but he was neatly pocketing the rest. Donald was clearly smart, but an asshole nonetheless.

Damon had been invited to stay for as long as it took to get his 'wrecked automobile' back on the road, so he could return to his home in Wichita (or whichever mid-western hole he had told her he had come from). He was even given a key, so he could come and go as he pleased. As it was a 'vintage car', he lied smoothly, it was going to take a while, so he would obviously find something to do all day so as to not get under her feet. 'Not at all', she had said, why didn't he join her at her club?

So by day, he was the toast of the over-fifty set, playing mixed doubles, cribbage, and squash, and sharing a slightly risqué joke or two. He was a card and everybody thought so – but that didn't stop Wanda looking at him like something that cat dragged in. When he bought her flowers (with the money Eleanor had given him because he 'never traveled with much cash, as had expected to be home the next day'), she left them near the range, so they died immediately. He had tried to speak to her about her children, but she just brushed him off with a 'Mr Damon, I am sure you have something better to do all day, than to stand here talking to me'. He had bought her a big ribboned box of candied peel (oh so such a shame, she was a diabetic). Eventually he gave up, and they prowled around each other like alley cats, not exactly fighting, but not exactly loving each other either.

Of course there was some talk, but Damon was just so gosh-darn charming, that even Imelda Mayhew had found some excuse to visit. She brought with her that yappy little rat-on-a-leash that she doted on. She was quite sorry that the dog behaved as it did, as he didn't normally bark so much with strangers (he did), and she was quite ashamed that she hadn't returned the cake tin before now (she wasn't even sure whose tin it was). And wasn't he a nice young man to think of her, when he offered her some candied peel, and how did he know that was candied peel was her absolute favorite, just like her daddy used to buy her…

At night it was a different story. He spent his evenings seducing Eleanor, but when she coyly retired to bed (he hadn't seen her naked yet, but give him time), he would take his house key and hit the town to feed. He would target people on the fringes of life; no-hopers and people he just found excruciatingly dull. Covering up their deaths was a bore, but part of his life.

By the third week, Damon began getting fed-up with the daytime pretence. Eleanor was not a bad looking woman for her age he supposed, especially since her renewed interest in herself after he showed obvious sexual interest in her. She had at least spiced up her wardrobe with some clothes that belonged to this decade. She had even ditched those hideous glasses, only secretly putting them on when she thought he wasn't looking. In fact, she had been on quite the spending spree, buying herself numerous clothes and cutesy little hats. She had also bought him plenty too; in fact such a steady stream of watches, ties, shirts and cuff links, that he wondered where the money was coming from.

On one of Wanda's supposed days off, he feigned a headache which got him out of having to attend Eleanor's ghastly club. He decided he would search the house and see if he could find the source of her cash, as it certainly wasn't what Donald gave her. He came across a locked attic and set about finding the key with a dogged persistence. Eventually he located it, locked in her diary. Although had already read that days ago, (it was full of _'he is so dreamy, I am quite beside myself' _and so on and so on), the key was a new find. He jumped up the rickety attic stairs two at a time, to see what treasures the room would expose.

The door slipped open and revealed a space filled with abandoned child's things. There was a beautiful cobweb covered rocking horse and a hat stand covered in dressing up clothes, (pirates, sailors, cowboys, etc). There were train sets, abandoned board games, and a number of packing trunks and vanity cases. Stacked in a corner were some photo albums.

He picked one up and flicked through a couple of pages. Stiff black and white photos featuring even stiffer children stared up at him, their faces ghostly with dust. Underneath each someone had written in a small and neat hand, _'Donald, aged 6'_ or '_Harold, aged 2'_. From the back of the album, a single photo fell out onto his lap. It depicted a smiling and youthful Eleanor, flanked by her husband and young boys. In her arms she held another baby, dressed in a richly-laced christening gown. Under the picture was simply written, _'Hattie'_.

Eleanor had never mentioned a daughter before, he thought. When he continued to search the room he found out why; inside an old and cracked leather valise, there lay a neatly folded christening gown and on it a silver filigree bracelet. Beneath the bracelet was a death certificate. He looked at the date; she had been 4 months old.

He slammed the valise shut and looked around for things that were worth his time. Babies died, he thought, it was a fact of life.

He found a slightly damaged emerald brooch which looked like the real thing and a string of pearls, tangled together with a doctor's stethoscope. Then he found what he was really looking for, the jackpot - the winning ticket. It was a checking account and check book in her name. The check book look newly tampered with and almost entirely used up.

"Well, well," he said, as he opened the account book, "so that's your little hidey hole, is it. I wonder if dear old Donald knows about that?"

"What are you doing in here?"

Wanda's voice made him jump. He must have been really pre-occupied not to hear her entering the house, yet alone coming into the attic.

"You ain't supposed to be in here." She cautioned him, her eyebrows knotted with suspicion.

She saw the pearls in his hands and took a step backwards. He was robbing them.

"They belong to Ms Critchlow, you put those back. Who said you could touch them?"

He gave her a steely-eyed glare as he stood up slowly, the area underneath his eyes beginning to pulse with veiny threads. The light was dim in here and she couldn't make out the changes to his face.

"Don't you take another step!" she warned, but her voice was cracking. Something about Damon's presence was shaking her to her core. He took another step towards her and she matched it going backwards. She looked behind her and there was no more space. She was at the top of the stairs, but to go down them she would have to turn her back on him, and she didn't like that option at all.

She would tough it out and tell him exactly what she thought of him instead. She opened her mouth to say he was a lying, stealing, conniving, philandering…

Damon was upon her and ripping her throat out before she had finished formulating the thought. He brutalized her body and sucked down her blood like it was Thanksgiving.

* * *

That afternoon he took the car which Eleanor had left him (just in case he needed it), and drove down Main Street. When he reached the end, he took a right into what people called Little Trinidad, an area where most of his new friends, would never go. As the streets narrowed and the houses got smaller, he knew he was in the right place. On the corners, coloreds were gathered drinking gin and ginger out of paper bags, or just hanging out and shooting the breeze. The old men laughed their warm hooting laughter, a liquid-honey kind of sound. The Pontiac slid past them and gained their appreciative nods. It was not often a white man would come this way, yet alone a white man in a car like that. He slipped his sunglasses on and enjoyed the ride. In the back of the Pontiac, was Wanda's body wrapped in blankets. He would have to wait until dark to deal with it, but he could think of a good place out by her church near the railroad crossing to leave her. It wouldn't be hard to believe that in that location animals had attacked her.

When he heard music drifting from an open doorway, he knew he had found what he was looking for and he pulled up right outside. Some little kids ran to his car and he flipped some quarters their way.

"You come get me if you see someone look at that car the wrong way." He instructed. They nodded solemnly, but when he found some candy in his pocket he knew that sealed the deal.

He then turned his attention to the watering hole now thirsted for and contentedly entered its dark oblivion.

* * *

By the time she had gotten home, he was three sheets to the wind. He had her record player on and was playing something suitably sleazy. She dropped her tennis racket in the hall and called out to him, the sweat still glistening on her thighs. He looked at her somewhat greedily and she gasped as he grabbed her around the waist and began to dance.

"Damon, you smell of liquor!" she admonished, but he ignored her protests and emboldened by the gin in his belly, crushed his lips against hers.

Far from protesting, she relented more easily than he expected and he lifted her off her feet and carried her up to bed.

* * *

He treated her quite roughly that night, taking her from behind so he didn't have to look at her face looking adoringly up at him. When he had finished, he strode into her bathroom, leaving her shell-shocked and gathering up the remainder of her clothes.

After a hot and soapy shower, he pulled her late husbands' shaving things from her cabinet and used his badger-hair brush to whip up a good foam on his throat. He didn't need to do this anymore, but he had to confess he missed the routine. The blade of the ivory inlaid cut-throat razor was still good and he scrapped away at the non-existent stubble.

She knocked lightly on the door and when he didn't respond, she came in. Her eyes sparkled when she saw him there, stripped to the waist, her husband's razor in his hand. He supposed he should speak, but couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

"What do you see in an old woman like me?" she asked, genuine fear on her face. He pulled her towards him until she was close enough to feel his breath on her face, his groin pressed against hers, the razor hovering above her in his other hand. Her eyes flicked between the razor and his face.

"Your money." He said.

She gulped and breathing heavily now said, "You can have it, Damon. All of it, if that's what you want." He kissed her roughly, covering her in shaving foam, slipping his tongue in her mouth so greedily that she actually recoiled.

"I'm just kidding doll." He said, a big dopey smile returning to his face. "Hey come on now, what do you take me for?" And he returned to his shave. She looked at him a moment longer, before turning back to the door.

"I meant what I said Damon; you can take it. I won't stop you." As she slipped from the bathroom, he turned to face the closing door and for the first time since he arrived, fear ran through him.

* * *

When they found Wanda's body, they said wolves had attacked her, as there had been a surprisingly high number of wolf attacks recently. Apparently one had come right into the town where it appeared to have attacked her neighbor's little dog. All they had found was just a bloodied leash. And sure, it did bark a lot – but that was no way for a little thing like that to go. Oh yeah, nor for the servant woman too. Still, what was she doing out by her church at night? That was some crazy way to behave when you knew that wolves were attacking innocent people; she kind of deserved what she got.

Damon convinced Eleanor that he alone could take care of her needs now. In fact, the love-struck fool went down on one knee and proposed to her the day of Wanda's funeral. She accepted immediately of course. Why she had no choice. For her, it was love.

* * *

A week or two passed and now here they were, standing in front of her children and their wives, telling them how deliriously in love they were. Of course the children were upset, how could they not be?

She had bought the ring on her finger herself, (as he had a bit of a cash-flow problem right now), and he had watched her write the check and marveled at the beauty of such a thing. Eight hundred and fifty six dollars and thirty five cents; it was more money than he had seen in months. The garish two carat rock on her hand had brought envious stares from the members of her set for which it had been intended and therefore he supposed she was happy.

Donald was quivering with rage and Harold fluttered with indecision, and Damon knew he walked a fine line. He would have to play his part expertly now, or risk losing everything. He excused himself to give them 'some alone time' and as soon as he stepped out the room the really bitter words flew; he was a 'gold-digger' and she was an 'naïve old fool', and so on and so on.

Donald's wife goaded him on, envious that her ring was a mere chip compared to the monstrous beast adorning her mother-in-law's finger, all gaudy and showy like a Holiday bauble. He sat in the attic listening through the floorboards, his vampire hearing pushed to the limit. He drifted in and out, when suddenly something caught his attention; it was Donald's wife who hit a subject which made the conversation turn.

"You're fooling yourself Eleanor if you think he will stay around when the money runs out. Do you think he wants a wrinkly old hag like you, a woman nearly in her sixties? A man like that?" she rolled her eyes. "He's not worth the spit on my shoe."

"I know he doesn't." Eleanor said, a calmness to her voice belying the situation. "I may be old, but I am not an idiot. He can have my money, all of it. If that's all he wants me for, so what? I don't care because he makes me happy, Juliet. It's the first time I have ever been happy."

"What money?" Donald spat out nastily, "You don't have any." His mother stared at him with contempt, for now they were at the hub of the matter.

"_Hattie's _money, Donald. The money I put aside every week before she was born. And when she… when she died, I couldn't stop myself and I still put a little bit away every week."

The room grew quiet then, even Harold stopped twitching.

"First there was money for her first pair of shoes, then it was for her school books, then a little something to buy her prom corsage, then her wedding dress, her first house, gifts for her children - my grandchildren!…" her voice quivered with emotion now, even Donald dared not speak.

"It was for the life she never got to have. So if he wants it Donald, he can have it - all of it. Because she doesn't need it anyway, and I would rather use it to keep him here, or burn it all, rather than give a single cent to either of you!"

As she finished her speech, she broke down in tears. There was a sound which he assumed was her sliding down the wall to the floor. He could hear her body shaking as she cried.

"_Where is he?"_ Donald suddenly raged, _"I will tear him limb from limb_!"

There was a high-pitched shriek then, whose he couldn't tell, but he knew he was in danger. Donald was a big man and a strong one; he had the kind of brut force that to really counteract required the finesse of his vampire strength. And if he used that, he would kill him immediately and that would ruin everything. If he didn't use it, Donald would throw him out, and _that _would ruin everything.

He looked out of the window at the moody sky and considered his options. If he ran now, he would never be able to come back and everything he had worked for would be for nothing. If he stayed, there was a real risk that the son would kill him.

Death or destitution. He didn't much like those options.

At that moment, the sky lit-up brightly with a sheet of white lighting, followed by a grumble of insistent thunder. Seconds later, the rain began.

Well that solved it for him: he just hated to get his hair wet.

He took a deep breath, popped his cuffs and jogged lightly down the attic stairs towards the dining room, where the ugly sounds of the family fighting rose once again to his ears.

He didn't even pause before opening the door.

"Miss me?" Damon said, throwing them a wink for good measure.

The fist of Donald Critchlow came towards him at speed.

He dodged it and ducked under his arm, coming up behind him, throwing his arms under his armpits and kicking the back of his knee, hard. Donald crumpled, hitting the floor hard. There was the sound of something snapping and Donald cried out. With his arms pinioned behind his back, he was not in a position to do anything. Damon looked over to Harold, but he was no fighter and was in fact shielding his own wife from this maniac his mother had clearly lost her mind over. All that, and he hadn't used his vampire moves once.

"Now, you both listen to me and listen to me good." Damon said. "Your mother and I are getting married. Now, not only will you be there, but you will go up to your mother and you will kiss her on the cheek and tell her how happy you are for her. You will bring a suitable gift, no less in value than what your mother deserves. And, so help me God, but you will both be happy for her!" Donald murmured some complaint at this latter, but Damon applied pressure to the injured knee and he soon shut up.

"Got it?" he said, yanking Donald's arms once more. His wife Juliet whimpered on his behalf.

"Got it?" he looked at Harold. Harold nodded, sending his little round specs bouncing on his nose.

Damon looked at his fiancé, crumpled on the floor and realized that he had gotten himself into an even bigger mess than he had thought possible.

Damn it, he thought, he was actually going to have to marry her.


	2. The Harder They Fall

**Quick recap: **

**Chapter 1 saw a down-on-his-luck Damon manipulated his way into a romance with an older, somewhat bigoted, widow - Eleanor Critchlow. He wanted her for her money and proposed to keep her strung along, but she fell in love for real even though she knew he was just using her. Both her sons objected to the union; and Damon was left in an ugly situation which meant no way out of the marriage. **

**Chapter 2 sees Stefan encounter a widow, of a very different nature. **

**I am sure I have strayed a wee bit/a lot from the show here – but I hope you will forgive me and come back for Chapter 3 which returns to the current day and ties everything together (I think!).**

**As before, I should mention that I am British; so please forgive any factual inaccuracies on account of my trying to write a story set in the US. I hope I am not just embarrassing myself. Mind you, I say that every time I post…. **

**Dowager**

**Chapter 2: The Harder they Fall**

She sat up at the foot of the bed and let the sheet fall from her body. He traced a finger lazily down her back through the little beads of sweat. They had had an interesting morning thus far. She turned to face him and smiled.

"Stefan, when we get married, can we have a choir?"

He laughed at the earnestness of her question.

"Of course, anything you want."

"And will there be flower girls?"

"Oh, at least a dozen. Maybe two." He said, catching on to her game. She went into the adjoining room and put a nightgown on, coming back briefly to lean down to kiss him.

"And an organist?"

"Just one? How about a whole orchestra?"

That made her smile. He reached for her hand and she let him pull her back down next to him. They kissed.

"Will I wear white?" she said, pulling away. Something in the tone of her voice had changed; he didn't respond immediately, but kissed her on the forehead whilst he considered the best way to answer.

"You know what," he said, "not only will you wear white, but so will I. And we'll make everybody else wear white too. Even the preacher." She giggled at that and wriggled out of his arms, got up to go to the doorway and looked back at him.

"I'm going to see if the bathroom is free - run a bath."

Stefan nodded and she left. He threw his hands behind his head and lay back on the bed. Outside he could hear the chants of the protesters. It was getting louder, so the crowd was obviously growing. The rally was taking place a good few miles away from her apartment block, but he was anxious to know if things were getting out of control. Most of the protests did.

He could hear banging on the door of the neighboring apartment and a girl was shouting incoherently to the occupier. The gist of her complaint seemed to be 'where the hell was her weed?' Stefan wrinkled his nose, he wanted to get his girl out of this hole, but she wouldn't go no matter how many times he asked.

Moments later he heard the sound of running water and he knew she had reserved the bathroom. Sure enough, their door opened and she stepped back in.

"Bathroom's free." She said. "Come on."

He roused himself reluctantly from the bed, pulled on his clothes and followed her down the hallway.

"Oh, I forgot the towels," she turned back towards her door.

He carried on to the bathroom, where to his horror, he found a stranger urinating into the cracked toilet.

"What the hell?"

"Oh, sorry man, I heard the bath running and I was desperate. I just thought I'd slip in here quickly."

He finished in his own good time, then washed up in their bath water. He offered to shake hands with Stefan as he passed him in the doorway, but was met with a contemptuous look. The stranger shrugged and shuffled off back down the corridor. Stefan went to the tub and pulled out the plug.

"Hey!", she protested, entering the bathroom just at that moment, "What are you doing? They'll kill me if we run out of hot water again."

He apologized and reluctantly put the plug back in. At that moment, the copper pipes began to clank alarmingly and the water from the faucet began to run red.

"Oh, not again!" she hissed and taking a loose plank from beneath the tub, hit the pipes heartily. The water began to run clear. She smiled.

"Well, it may not be heaven," she said in a sing-song voice, "but it's home."

"It's a dump." He protested sulkily, seeing nothing humorous in the situation at all. "Why won't you let me take you out of here?"

"Look, you don't have to come here." She said seriously and leant down to stir the pink-tinged water with her hand.

He raised his eyebrows and turned away from her – why did she always have to start this fight over and over again? What she actually meant was, 'You don't have to be with me.' Sooner or later it _always_ came back to that. Their relationship, their never-ending problems, did it really boil down to one thing?

"Shelley, don't." He said, setting his mouth firmly. She whipped her head around to him.

"Don't what? Don't remind you that this thing between you and me is madness? Don't remind you that it could get us both _killed_?"

At that, he walked from the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him as hard as he could. One of the neighboring apartments yelled out in protest as the ancient glass reverberated violently in its cracked putty frame.

"Screw you buddy!" He shouted to the invisible complainant and marched from that shitty apartment as fast as his legs could carry him.

* * *

As soon as he hit the street he knew the situation had grown larger and faster than he had anticipated. Streams of people were heading towards the rally; they were angry and vocal. How had he not heard this? He guessed he hadn't really wanted to; he wanted to lie around in bed with his girl all day and shut out the problems of the outside world.

As he turned onto Rowan, he felt like a tiny salmon trying to swim upstream. A police roadblock on 34th had driven many people to take this route, which would be a ten block detour for most. He finally began to understand that it didn't matter how many times they tried to stop people, that they would continue to come and walk all night if they had to.

Some young-guns shoved into him, thrusting their placards in his face. They wore their t-shirts tied around their heads and their chests were bare. They chanted slogans as they lolled ahead. He stepped aside and let them pass.

He looked up and noticed a broken fire escape on the far side of the building that he was skirting along. One easy leap would be all it would take to reach the railings, but he couldn't risk being seen to use his vampire skills as there were just too many people around. Getting around by rooftop would have been ideal on a day like today. After all, who would think to look up when there was so much happening at street level?

He could hear chanting up ahead, a call followed by a response. There was jeering and shouting. In the distance, he could hear sirens. A lot of them. He zipped his jacket and flicked up his collar; for some reason, it made him feel more confident. A whole family walked past. From pop to the youngest toddler, they all carried placards. They stared at him silently as they moved away, sucked into the heart of the crowd.

He tried to cut up the alley behind the main block, but could see he would have to push through a collective huddle of men there and he was definitely not welcome. He could feel their eyes bore through him. He circled back and as soon as he hit the main street again, he was swept into a massive crowd.

As he was hurried along, he worried about Shelley. He hoped she had taken her bath and gone back to bed to sulk. He couldn't bare the thought that she would actually join the protest just when it looked like it might get dangerous.

'_Rights?' _She had said whenever he had brought it up_, 'What do they know about rights? What about the right to stay alive?'_

He hoped today wasn't the day when she finally changed her mind and joined them.

The crowd pushed him all the way along Main Street. He decided that the only sensible thing to do would be to stop fighting it and go with it. After what seemed like an age of being jostled, elbowed and turned away at roadblocks, he finally made it to where they were all heading: the rally.

* * *

Even though he had been pushed along in massive hordes, he still hadn't expected it to be like this. There were people as far as the eye could see in every direction, all gathered for a common purpose. Who could ignore protest on this scale? It was phenomenal.

The speaker on stage was miked up, but the sound was echoey, delayed and mired by feedback. It was hard to make out what was being said, yet alone who was saying it. From back here, almost a mile from the main stage, the audience were having their own conversations about the right and wrong ways to bring about change. Seemed like most everyone knew the answer, and yet every answer was different. Some healthy, good-hearted arguments were breaking out around him, as well as a handful of jokers heckling the stage.

On his right, a family had stubbornly created themselves a space in the crowd for their picnic and the children were helping themselves to food. The older matriarchs were running things like a tight ship, not letting the kids get away with a single thing more than they were allowed to have.

To his left, not two hundred yards away, were a row of cops chewing gum and brandishing night sticks. They had their cars lined up behind them like the second line of defense. The cops flicked their eyes over the crowd and called out to each other, adopting semi-casual stances that failed to convince anyone that they were relaxed. They were outnumbered, but they had all the power and the crowd knew it. Each kept a healthy distance from each other in an uneasy standoff.

The crowd around him had actually settled into the spirit of easy discourse. They were chatty and frivolous and when chants began near the stage, they rippled back to these people, who lifted their voices with gusto around him. After a while, he forgot to feel self-conscious and began to join in. The old grandma from the picnic group next to him tapped him on the leg.

"You want some chicken?" she offered.

He was about to refuse, when he realized this wasn't something he should say no to. It was someone reaching out to him, telling him he wasn't alone and that they appreciated the fact he was there to join them.

"Why sure ma'am, that'd be nice."

When the speaker they were all here to see came to the stage, the crowd erupted so heartily that it was five minutes before he could speak. The sense of excitement was palpable. He raised his hand for silence and a hush fell over the crowd almost instantly; it was respect on a level unlike anything Stefan had seen before. Even though it took a minute for the speaker's words to reach the back, when he finished a sentence, the front of the crowd were already cheering. Each sentence went on like this, with rolling applause from the front of the crowd backwards. His audience openly wept.

"_Hallelujah, bless the Lord!_" the ladies cried and their men punched the air.

Vampires weren't prone to emotion, but Stefan felt this day firmly carve a place into his memory.

* * *

After so many hours of marching, gathering and listening, the people were tired but elated. As the dusk began to fall, the crowd started to break up and move on.

"Leon, you come down off Stefan's shoulders now. We gotta go home." Said the lady who had offered him chicken. Her name was Aida Brown and over the course of the afternoon he had gotten to know her a little, even taking her youngest grandson up on his shoulders so he could see the stage.

Aida wanted to retrieve the boy, so Stefan bent to put the child on the ground. As he straightened up, Aida took hold of his forearm and squeezed it tight.

"You and I," she said, "we say we are too old and set in our ways, but things have to change now, for him."

It was a curious statement, laced with significance. He knew she was asking him to make a promise. She had hold of his arm, so he mirrored the movement and they became clasped together. He looked into her milky eyes as if to find the true meaning of her words and when he felt he understood what was being asked of him, he gave her a single nod. She nodded back and let go of him.

It was the last he saw of Aida Brown and her family. They drifted away after that, drawn into the slow-dispersing crowd.

* * *

Stefan felt shaken by the day's events. As spontaneous singing rang out amongst the walkers, a protest song here, a psalm there, the sentiment of it hit him hard. He released he had never understood what the whole movement had been about before, not really. He had never tried to get to grips with it on a human level – why would he? But today he saw that it wasn't just people fighting for something, but it was a past they were rejecting. Maybe even his past.

Aida had seen it; he didn't know how she had, but she had looked into his eyes and found him there. He was ashamed of some of what she may have seen and so he took his promise to her as seriously as any blood oath. He would honor her will for change to his dying day, no matter when that day came. There were so many things he wanted to start with, but he knew which should be the first.

He had to speak to Shelley - poor Shelley whose husband had been killed just days after they were married. A case of being 'in the wrong place at the wrong time' he had heard. He had never understood her bitterness and anger towards the protests before now. Today though, he understood it all; he knew why she hated the movement, it was because it took Charlie away from her. But she had to make her peace with it. He had to find her and let her know.

* * *

Now things were returning to normal, he had found a moment with no-one around to leap up to the rooftops and make quick progress above the city. Every now and again he looked down and saw the people en-masse making their way back to their homes. When he finally got to her apartment, it was in darkness and he cursed himself for his previous petulance in walking out like that. He wrote a brief note on a scrap of paper he found in his pocket, which he pinned under a flaking scrap of paint on her door and turned to leave.

"Come crawling back have you? She doesn't want to see you, you know."

Stefan turned around to see a girl he didn't know confronting him. He looked bemused, but before he could speak, Shelley's voice rang out from the girl's apartment.

"Its okay, Marion, I want to see him." He sprang to their door and called past Marion's shoulder into the room she was using her body to block him from entering.

"Shelley?" he called into the apartment, "Can we talk?"

"I suppose you can go in." Marion muttered and he stepped past her over the threshold. She needed have blocked him so wholeheartedly with her body, he couldn't have gotten in without her invitation anyway.

"Do you want me to stay?" Marion called to Shelley, who he found curled up on Marion's sofa, with a box of opened tissues in front of her.

"No, it's fine."

"Sure, I'll go down to Bill's, but if you need me – you just holler, okay?"

She gave Stefan an evil look, before closing her own front door. Stefan walked over to Shelley and hugged her, his hands burying themselves in her downy soft hair.

"I'm sorry." He said simply.

"It's okay. I'm sorry too." She sniffed, tears running down her face. He sat down beside her and offered her the box of tissues - she indicated she held one already.

"Shelley, I wanted to tell you, I was there today. At the rally."

She nodded.

"So was I, Stefan." He looked at her with surprise.

"You were?"

"Mm-hmm. I just couldn't bear it before, you know. The pain. Our young men, so full of fire." She began.

He settled down into the chair beside her. "You mean, Charlie?"

She nodded. She had never really told him the full story before. He knew she was a widow when he met her and that she had not long been married before her husband was killed; but he didn't know the detail.

"Charlie…" she hesitated when she said his name, afraid that tears would overcome her again. Stefan gave her a glass of water and she began again. "I knew what Charlie was when I met him. He said nothing ever came of silent protest and that people had to act if they wanted to change things." She shook her head. "Him and his friends, they were locked up - beaten. I spent so much time at the courthouse, I barely saw my own home."

"Did you take part?" He asked.

"I printed leaflets, all the women did, but mostly we'd find ways to raise bail." She shook her head.

"One night, he came to my door badly beaten, his face covered in bruises, his arm broke. The police set dogs on them, he said. I was so worried, I made him promise not to stir things up, but he just couldn't sit it out." She sighed at the bitter memory.

"We married not long after that. They were all there at the wedding, his men, lined up on the back row. I think I hated them from that moment, for I knew they would take him away from me. I knew it." She sniffed, but drank some water and continued.

"His arm had not long been mended, and so he went out that day – agitating. I confronted him before he left, but he only said, 'We're starting to get somewhere! Can't you feel it?', but all I knew was that he was leaving me alone again. He never came home that night… At four in the morning they knocked on my door, caps in hand. I cursed their name and their stupid cause. I didn't want no more part of it."

She paused and took control of her breathing. He reached out and took her hand.

"So I got away from everyone and everything that reminded me of him. And here I was, and then there you were… Skinny white boy from Mystic Falls, wherever the hell that is. Always pestering me and following me around and wearing me down with that damn charm. Charm in spades." She gave him a sly, sad smile and he squeezed her hand.

"I think I only went with you, because you weren't him," she admitted, "you weren't tied up in this thing. But what _we_ are doing is _equally_ dangerous. Perhaps more so, you have to know that."

He nodded slowly, acknowledging the truth of it for once.

"I don't have people no more," she continued, "I moved away from all that. But if we were ever to even find someone to marry us, how would we live? _Where_ would we live? No-one would accept us."

"But people like Charlie, they're changing things." He argued. "It's working – you saw it yourself today."

"I saw a whole lotta people saying a whole lotta things. I didn't see no change. You and I will still get spat at on the street. And what about if I were to fall pregnant? What about our children?"

He turned away guiltily at that. There was one problem she would never have to worry about. He sighed. He loved her, but he knew he could never persuade her this way. She hated words, rhetoric. He needed to act.

He took both her hands in his own and looked at her.

"If you want to be with me, we will make it work. I can protect you. You know that."

She shook her head. "I've seen hate," she began, "I've seen more than I can stand of it. You know I love you Stefan, but you can't protect me from that."

He dropped her hands and felt anger rising to the surface again. He stood up.

"If I find someone who will marry us, will you live with me as man and wife?"

"I want to…", the word 'but' was heavily implied.

"Change doesn't start outside these walls Shelley, it starts inside us. I think Charlie understood that."

She looked up at him and saw that he burned with a furious intent. Today had gotten him all riled up, that was for sure. For a quiet life, she nodded.

"Why not? Let's start a revolution." She said, her eyes filled with disbelief.

* * *

It took him weeks to find the right place. It was a simple fact that interracial marriages were banned. Virginia amongst others, had been talking about change, but nothing had come of it yet. He found a place down south, where if you paid enough money, they looked the other way. "We have our own laws in border country" the pastor had said, as he pocketed the fat wedge of cash Stefan had bribed him with.

He went to look at the chapel itself. It was a sorry affair, a white-washed timber shack sat squat in the centre of a countryside dustbowl. There wasn't much around, a couple of run-down houses holding families who spilled out the sides. He sucked his teeth. It would have to do. Perhaps with some ribbon and some flowers?… He didn't have a whole lot of money at the moment and most of what he had did have, had gone on buying the marriage license. Even then, he had had to compel the woman behind the counter who was fretting about it all.

* * *

He had driven her there himself in a borrowed car. They had been two days on the road already and on the day itself they got up at four in the morning to get there by lunch. The heat was baking; the best part of ninety, ninety-five, degrees. He stopped for gas and as the boy came out to fill her up and wash their windows, Stefan watched Shelley fan herself. She looked pretty in her rose pink dress. He told her she could wear white if she wanted to, but she insisted it wasn't right. He took out a handkerchief and faked wiping sweat from his brow. The boy had a leg in calipers and was taking an interminable amount of time to make his way around the car. He limped to Stefan's window.

"Will that be all, sir?" Stefan told him that it was and tipped him. The boy flicked his wide eyes between him and his fiancé. He started the engine and was happy to get on the road again.

He realized that neither of them had spoken in the best part of two hours and so he reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. He found that she was shaking.

* * *

When they pulled up, the money he had given to the pastor to spruce the place up had obviously lined his own pocket, as aside from some rather sad looking daisies tied to the gate posts, there was little else to recommend it. Still, as he opened her door for her she didn't say anything. She got out of the car, brushed herself down and straightened her bonnet. Then she froze.

"Stefan, I can hear voices inside." He had been so busy fussing around her that he had failed to notice. But now she said it, he realized that something was indeed wrong with this picture.

"Is someone else here already? Are we early?"

"No. This is our time."

He fixed a grim look on his face and marched ahead of her to find out what was going on. The church door was open and the pastor inside was busy reading someone else's vows. His voice droned on as the few guests inside swatted away the flies.

Stefan stood in the entrance, waiting to get accustomed to the light. His body was silhouetted in the doorway and it cast a long shadow down the aisle. The pastor raised his hands to his eyes to see who it was.

"Why come on in son, don't just stand there." He said.

Stefan stepped into the gloom of the church with its heat and its flies and tired looking flowers. The would-be bride and groom turned to face him… Who was this interrupting their ceremony?

The groom fixed his eyes on the stranger. Slowly he began to make him out, his features as familiar as his own.

"Stefan?" he said. "Is that you?"

"Damon!" Stefan exclaimed.

"What in Sam Hill are _you _doing here?"


	3. Loose Ends

**Ah, here it is, the finale to my terribly unloved story _Dowager_ that I spent so long working on and yet has failed to get a single review! *chuckles***

**For the loyal people who have read it, thank you very much, I appreciate your time. I hope you have enjoyed at least some of it. I had fun writing it.**

**May I advise that if you don't like sex and violence, this chapter may not be for you. And, er, it all gets a bit kinky…. So you have been warned.**

**Anyway, enjoy.**

**SFP x**

**Dowager**

**Chapter 3: Loose Ends**

The bell rang and Caroline was fast on her feet. Elena was slow to follow; she appeared to be sat frozen at her desk, staring into space.

"Elena, I thought you'd be dying to get out of here? Aren't you having dinner with Stefan tonight?" Caroline asked.

"Um, yeah…I guess so."

"Ok, well, I've got practice, I gotta run. Catch you later!" She said sunnily and then breezed out of the classroom as though only two minutes before she hadn't dropped the bomb which had left Elena reeling. She gathered her things slowly and walked out to her car in a kind of daze. As she sat behind the wheel she cursed herself for her stupidity.

They had been chatting about life, love and her relationship with Stefan, when Caroline suddenly said, _'I wonder how many times he's been married?'_. The question was completely logical, but she had never even considered it for a moment. Her boyfriend was 162 years old; _of course_ he would have been married before. Of course! But when Caroline had simple mentioned it, without even missing a beat of their conversation - Elena had felt sick to her stomach. Why had it never occurred to her before?

When she finally turned the key in the ignition her cell rang. It vibrated from her purse with noisy persistence and she regarded it as if it were alien to her. It kept ringing, so eventually she killed her engine and took the call.

"Elena, would you mind please picking up some heavy cream if you are passing the store?" Stefan asked politely.

"Sure…"

"Thanks. See you soon." He hung up.

She turned the key and began her drive on autopilot. She drove straight through Mystic and even past the 7-Eleven. She didn't stop until she was at the Salvatore boarding house.

* * *

"Hey, sweetheart," he greeted her with a kiss, "you got here quickly." He was somewhat puzzled. He put his hand out and she looked confused. "The cream…?" he nudged.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot..." She said and walked past him into the house. He had literally spoken to her only five minutes before. Following her inside, a sense of worry began to creep over him.

* * *

"Don't worry, I won't interrupt you two lovebirds, I am on my way out." Damon said, patting down his pockets for his keys. He began a hunt for them under sofa cushions.

She didn't respond. Instead, she turned and looked at Stefan, putting out her hand to touch his arm. He had to listen to what she came here to say.

"Are you all right?" He asked.

"Have you ever been married?" She said, her troubled brown eyes immediately searching his own.

The question stopped both brothers in their tracks.

"Wow." Stefan knitted his eyebrows together. "Where did that come from?"

Damon dropped to the sofa with a thud. Stefan took Elena's arm and steered her to it too, forcing her to sit. She sat awkwardly on the edge, hands pressed firmly between her knees.

"Weren't you about to leave?" Stefan directed at his brother.

"Not a chance." Damon grinned impishly. In fact, he removed his jacket and made himself comfortable. Stefan ignored him and turned back to Elena.

"Has someone said something to you?" He asked carefully.

"Why? Should they have?" She snapped, worried there was something else she didn't want to hear.

"No, no, calm down. I just meant, what brought this on?"

"I _seriously _can't believe you haven't had this conversation! Priceless." Damon chuckled.

"Shut up, Damon!" Stefan growled.

"You haven't answered me." Elena said. Stefan put out a hand to stroke her leg, but she flinched away from him. He sighed unhappily.

"Elena, I am not doing this in front of him. We'll talk later."

"No. He'll at least tell me the truth. Damon, has he been married before? And whilst we're at it, have you?"

The abruptness of her tone took them both by surprise. Damon raised an eyebrow; his previous cockiness almost entirely disappeared when she turned the question onto him.

"Elena…" he began, "I'm not sure what to say to you…?" He looked at Stefan for guidance, but found none.

Stefan forced her hand into his own and reluctantly she turned to face him, her cheeks flushed red.

"I'll tell you everything you want to know, but we are not going to do it like this." He said. "Damon is going to stay for dinner and we are all going to talk."

"I am?" Damon took one look at Stefan's face and realized there was no arguing. "Oh, apparently I am."

"Stop treating me like a child." Elena said. She got up and marched straight over to where they kept their spirits and poured herself a large whiskey.

"Damon?" She said, offering the alcohol.

"Well, cocktail hour has come rather early," he said, "but why not?"

His tone would have sounded the same as normal to most ears, but Stefan knew that Damon was as concerned as he was. Elena's behavior was troubling erratic, and it seemed as though she was spoiling for a fight. Neither brother particularly enjoyed female confrontation, despite seeming to always get themselves mixed up in it. It appeared to be a Salvatore family trait.

Elena held up the bottle and looked at Stefan who shook his head no. Oh God, he was fretting about her - as always. She really hated that. She just wanted the truth.

She handed Damon his Scotch and sat down next to him.

"I'm going to start cooking," Stefan said, "you can come and join me if you want to. Or not, it's up to you." He left the room with a distinct air of a man who was not in the mood to talk about this, or anything.

She downed her drink in one and got up to fix another.

"Well, I'm glad to see my Glenfiddich is to your liking, but really, you might want to eat something first." Damon said to her.

"Don't patronize me." She said, deliberately downing a second and pouring herself a third.

"Oh boy, tonight's going to be fun…" He muttered under his breath, but aloud he added cheerfully "Never drink alone!" and held his glass out for a refill. She obliged and came and sat back down next to him. She knew Stefan would be listening intently from the kitchen, so she made it worth his while.

"Tell me." He shook his head.

"Not yet."

"I want to know."

"And you will. Be patient." There was no way he was doing this without Stefan. It was too complex, too tiring.

She huffed and sipped at her drink. (At least she had slowed down on that front, he thought.)

"Come on," he said, taking her glass from her and carrying it through to the dining room. "Let's go watch Stefan make himself useful." She followed him, but only because that was the way her drink was heading.

* * *

Once in the dining room, they worked together to set the table. Damon ran down to the cellar and brought up a couple of bottles of wine. He picked the lowest alcohol content stuff he could find before taking it back upstairs. She was looking surly and when he asked her if she wanted to come through to the kitchen, she refused to move - so he left her there and went by himself.

Stefan was furiously chopping, taking his frustration out on an eggplant. When Damon came in, they exchanged glances.

"How is she?" Stefan asked in a lowered voice.

Damon pulled a face. "I hope this meal is almost ready." He said, miming the action of her knocking back drinks. He left his brother to his work and returned to the dining room, grabbing a glass of tap water as an afterthought.

They had been sat in awkward silence for the best part of the meal, waiting for Elena to take the lead. Damon was just about to say '_well, its been fun, but_…', when she finally spoke.

"Stefan, when I look at you, you are the same age as I am. I forget the life you have lead and the relationships you have had. I don't mean sex, I mean everything. All the people you have come into contact with…" she said as if finishing some train of thought she had had some time ago. "But your _actual _relationships, the people you have loved; I guess we don't talk about those. Caroline today said something about how you 'must have been married' in the past and I felt so stupid, because I hadn't even thought of it. Not once. Then I remembered your real age and I thought how small and insignificant our time together must be to you."

Damon looked over the table to Stefan, he knew that that comment would have cut deep and he could see that it had. It was time he interrupted.

"We've lived a long time Elena, its true," he said, "but the significant people in our lives stay significant whether we have known them for a day, or twenty years. Just like they do for you."

She looked at Stefan, who had his hands clasped and head bowed as if he was praying. He balanced his head on his forefingers.

"Will you answer me Stefan? Have you ever been married?" She looked at him directly but he kept his head lowered. Eventually he looked her in the eyes.

"No." He said, "But there was someone I wanted to, once."

She turned to face the other brother. "Damon?" He also shook his head in the negative.

"Forgive me for saying so, but I find that kind of hard to believe." She got up angrily and marched out of the dining room. The men got up to follow her. When they found her, she was back by the spirits pouring another drink.

"Who was she, Stefan? This person you wanted to marry, but oh-so-conveniently forgot to."

"Sit down please, Elena." She stood defiantly and finally somewhat losing his temper, he raised his voice. "Elena, _sit down_."

She pouted but did what she was asked. They joined her.

"Her name was Shelley Demonte and she was… special to me." Stefan began, his lips felt dry and he passed his tongue across them whilst wondering how to continue. She was finally quiet and listening intently, so he knew he had to go on.

"We met in troubled times, it was difficult to be together."

"It was the sixties, Elena. She was black." Damon translated bluntly. Stefan gave him a look, but Damon shrugged. There was no point skirting around the issue.

Elena thought about that. She wasn't sure what she expected to hear (to be honest, she hadn't thought that far ahead), but she was fairly sure that first hand experience of bigotry wasn't top of the list. She had a million questions, but she started with the most important one.

"Did you love her?"

He raised his eyebrows as he thought about that.

"I thought so at the time." He admitted. "I cared for her, deeply, but the issues always seemed to get in the way. People like us, well, it was hard."

"Did you know her?" She asked Damon.

"We met." He replied, looking across at Stefan when he answered.

"You said you wanted to marry her – why didn't you?" She asked, returning her line of questioning to Stefan.

"Life got in the way." He said simply. Damon rolled his eyes.

"What he means to say is that they tried to, but it didn't happen."

"So what happened? What aren't you telling me?" She raised her own voice now, even though she hated to be the 'hysterical woman', she felt like one. Stefan looked up at Damon, who briefly held his gaze. Elena thought she must have been drunk because it seemed to her that Stefan seemed to be asking permission of his brother to tell his _own_ life story. It was all very confusing. Damon gave him the slightest of nods. What was going on between them? Why had Stefan asked him to stay in the first place? She was getting really irritated with the pair of them, stalling and not being direct. She wanted to scream. Eventually Stefan began to speak.

"We drove a long way, out of our state, out of the goddamn country almost, to a church I had found where the pastor would do it – for a healthy bribe. It was still illegal back then to marry outside your race, you see." He paused, got up and fixed himself a drink. "We had very little money and no plan what to do after, but we figured we would get by, no matter how hard it was. But I'm not so sure of that anymore." He admitted. "Things were tense back then. Even driving in the car together people would be shocked if they saw us. They used to spit - name call. All kinds of things. Ugly times." He shook his head.

She glanced at Damon, who appeared to be listening to this potted history patiently.

"Shelley wasn't sure we could even get through it without someone trying to stop us. Don't get me wrong, she was tough, but she had been married before and her husband had died trying to bring about civil rights. She was scared of all the trouble us being married would bring. I always wonder if I didn't push her into it." He added reflectively. He ran his hand through his hair. The guilt he obviously felt played across his face, but he continued. "Anyway, I took her to the church and when we turned up, we interrupted another wedding." He took a sip of his drink and his eyes flicked up to Damon. Damon said nothing.

"It was Damon, Elena. It was his wedding we interrupted." She blinked.

"That's impossible."

"You'd think. But Damon was trying to marry a rich widow whose family didn't approve. They were supposed to be happy about it, but they didn't want the wedding to happen. Money was involved you see. The sons had identified him for the crook he most assuredly was." Stefan met Damon's eyes again and a look passed between them that was hard to identify. "The sons got lawyers to try and stop it, so he took his fiancé on the run to the most out of the way place he could find. Marry quickly - no questions asked."

She looked between them, shocked at what was being said. She couldn't read the tension in the air – they seemed to blame each other for something that had gone down. It was too strange for words, but the tension in the room made her head buzz.

"He was furious when we interrupted. His fiancé's sons were in pursuit and I delayed the ceremony just long enough so they could find the place, march in and create a scene. When they discovered that we were brothers and I had turned up to marry a black woman… Well, that just about made them explode. They claimed it was a lawful impediment to the marriage and the pastor said he wanted no more to do with either of us."

Elena felt her stomach lurch. She couldn't take her eyes of Damon now. As his brother narrated his own story, she realized how inexplicably linked their lives were and always had been. Katherine was the least of it. There was so much history between them. Would she be part of that history too? Her brain seemed to be on a go-slow, she was finding it difficult to make the connections any more.

Stefan continued, but she could only focus on the little twitch in Damon's jaw.

"When the pastor we had driven three days to see announced he was done with us and with Damon's people flinging racist insults at her, well… I am sure you can imagine the rest. Shelley wanted no more part of it."

Elena furrowed her brow.

"If she loved you," she said, "she'd have gone through with it no matter what. She'd have found a way." Stefan shook his head.

"I think it was the out she had been looking for all along. She turned tail and ran from that place. I never saw her again. Plus, Damon gave me a right hook; I still have the scar. See?" He indicated a small scar on his cheekbone.

She wasn't interested in that, that was just standard sibling stuff. She had a two-inch long scar on her leg from when Jeremy chucked a toy truck at her when they were little.

"Damon, did you love your fiancé?"

"It was for the money, darling." He said. "I was a little strapped back then."

She couldn't help feeling that she expected better from them both. She shook her head, but the cloudiness refused to lift.

"Stefan why didn't you go after Shelley?"

"Don't you think I tried? I looked high and low, but she was gone. I went back to the city, to her apartment, but she had left all her things and never came back for them. I even tried to trace her people, though they were long since estranged. She knew how to vanish, Elena. She didn't want to be found."

He drank the dregs of his whisky, put the glass down and went over to her. He knelt down on her level and stroked her knees.

"I have a heart Elena, maybe not like yours, but I do have a heart. I loved Shelley and I was devastated we wouldn't be together. But my relationship with her, or anyone else for that matter – doesn't even begin to compare to what I have with you."

She reached for his hands and held them tight. They briefly kissed and Damon consoled himself with his drink. She turned to face him now as Stefan returned to his seat.

"What was your fiancé's name, Damon?"

"Eleanor Critchlow, of the Lexington Critchlows." He said mockingly.

"What happened to her? I mean she must have been upset at the way things turned out?"

There was a pause, which seemed to chill the room.

"She hung herself."

"My God! I'm so sorry."

Damon didn't acknowledge her with a response, but she noticed that his jaw remained tense. She wasn't quite sure she wholly believed that he had only been marrying this woman for the money. If he was, then why was he trying so hard not to look upset? The drink made her careless and she said her thoughts out loud.

"You cared for her."

He stood up angrily.

"She was a cash-cow Elena. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't try and romanticize me or my relationships." He began to leave, and then said as an afterthought, "There has been fucking and getting fucked and that is about it."

As he walked towards the stairs and she stood up suddenly (perhaps not such a great idea).

"Damon!" he delayed but she had to address his back. "Damon, I'm sorry."

"Not necessary." He began back up the stairs.

"No, Damon. I'm sorry you never got to find out what could have happened between you. Maybe it would have worked out."

He paused at that and then disappeared entirely.

* * *

After the discomfort of the previous exchange, Elena was happy to be with Stefan alone. The room seemed to return to some sense of calm.

"If there are ever things you want to know, just ask me." Stefan said as he settled beside her in the place Damon had vacated. "I don't know how much you want to know, you have to tell me."

"Okay then…" Fine, maybe she would call his bluff, "how many women have you slept with?" The drink cut right to the point.

"Sixty four."

She wasn't expecting him to answer at all, so she paused now to align her thoughts. Her brain refused to do the math, but it didn't seem like all that many. Not over so many years.

"Why so few?"

It was his turn to be surprised; he thought she would be angry.

"I'm choosy." He said and then corrected himself. "Actually, that's not true. I didn't used to be choosy, but I calmed down a lot as I got older. In the end, Elena, you have to understand that sex is often just a tool for vampires to acquire human blood. If you take blood out of the equation, you want to avoid being intimate with people in that way; its just temptation."

He looked towards the stairs and thought about his brother. "It was kind, what you said to him."

"Do you think he loved her?"

"I don't know, but I saw how he reacted when you suggested it. Maybe he had feelings for her, you know, in as much as Damon has feelings."

"Hasn't there been anyone else, anybody at all that you wanted to marry?" She asked incredulously.

"Not until now." He said looking at her, but he could see that her eyes were swimming slightly and the significance of the statement was completely lost on her. "But you need to go to bed." He added with a wry smile. "Come on. Let me carry you."

"I can walk!" She said stubbornly. She stood up and tottered over to the stairs, beginning her ascent as if it were an assault on Everest. "Stefan, do you think Damon will find love?" She asked loudly, swaying outside Damon's door.

"I hope so." He said, knowing they would be heard. "I really do."

* * *

She woke at three a.m. with a raging thirst and a need for Advil. When they went to bed, Stefan had consumed half a prescription's worth of sleeping pills to put himself out for the count, so she was going to have to get whatever she needed for herself.

She slipped out of bed and made her way down towards the kitchen where Stefan had put her things. When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she found Damon sat in candlelight, drinking blood. Although her head was killing her, she still felt pride enough in her appearance to run her hands over her bed-hair. He seemed lost in his thoughts and so she temporarily slipped past him into the kitchen and found the drugs in her purse. A wave of nausea hit her, but it passed and she took the pills with a large glass of water. She knew she had to go over to him and say something, things felt awkward and she wanted to clear it up.

"Damon." She said, coming into the living room and sitting next to him. She pulled her legs up and huddled herself, it was cool down here and she was only wearing a vest top and shorts. He saw she was cold and considered placing an arm around her, but tossed his jacket around her shoulders instead. She took it gratefully, and pulled it close around her body, it smelled a little of his aftershave and warm leather. He was about to move away from her and return to bed, so she asked him to stay.

"Please come and sit with me a while."

"Can't sleep?" He asked as he settled back down.

"Too much drink." She admitted with a smile. He returned it.

"No such thing." He added conspiratorially. She appreciated the kindness.

Where to start? How could she verbalize what she was thinking? He was so tricky; she knew that if she said the wrong thing he would slip away from her. She was sure she wasn't at her most coherent best right now, but she may never get another opportunity like this. She must have been staring at him, because suddenly he frowned.

"Stop it, Elena. Stop feeling sorry for me." He drained his glass of blood and put it down. How did he do that? How did he always know what she was thinking?

"Stop it with the big eyes, the meaningful glances and the kind words for 'poor old Damon'. I don't need your bloody pity!"

She turned to face him.

"We can't help it if we want you to be happy!" She said, cross that he had seen right into her. "Why is it such a bad thing? Why I can't I want that for you?" The change from the use of 'we' to 'I' was not lost on him.

Anger suddenly roused him and he jumped to his feet.

"Because it's not your right!" She stood and letting his jacket slip from her shoulders got right up in his face. She knew that he could feel her booze-tinged breath, but she didn't care. Let him think she was drunk – what did it matter anyway?

He couldn't understand his anger, where it came from or why it felt so raw. He knew she wasn't scared of him and it royally pissed him off. She would never back down, never give in. Why couldn't she just let him alone instead of constantly prodding at scars and making him think and feel about things that were better left forgotten? She should be scared, terrified even, in awe of his power to destroy her.

Impulsively he grabbed her above her elbows, shaking her and raising her almost off her feet so she had to struggle to stand on her tiptoes. His teeth shot out and veins protruded and he showed her his true self, every bit of the vampire she was supposed to fear.

"I could kill you," he said breathlessly, "I could rip the head from your neck before you could even blink. I could kill your family, your friends, your neighbors, before your feet touched the floor."

He gripped her harder, leaving half-moon bruises where his fingers dug into her flesh. Never had he wanted to hurt her more. She looked him fiercely in the eyes, defiance running through every pore of her body.

"Why don't you then? Why don't you just kill me, Damon? Put an end to it!"

She tipped her head back and the sound of the blood throbbing through her jugular hit him like a freight train. Her blood, the essence of her being; he knew that if he could have her now he would be rid of this pain that gnawed him from the inside out. He pulled her right against his body and she offered her throat, a subordinate gesture that was anything but. It made him want to drain her dry.

"Do it, Damon. Tear my throat out!"

He roared, a blood curdling, furious sound from the depths of his being, but still she was defiant - still had the upper hand. He pulled her throat to his teeth, where they pricked at her flesh. He paused, his hesitation a mockery of who he was. Her pale, vanilla flesh was throbbing with the elevated beat of her heart. It was thundering, taunting him, calling out… making him hard.

He wanted the taste of her, wanted to tear into her. So what was stopping him? He felt his power slipping away from him, he had already begun to relax his grip and her scrabbling feet had now found purchase. Her chest was rising and falling with rapid breaths. Despite her helplessness, she had contempt written through every cell of her being; her black eyes recalcitrant with her own righteousness.

With that, he hesitated no longer and plunged his teeth into her, insatiable in his desire. She screamed, tears exploding from her eyes, her hands struggling to push herself away.

He sucked and sucked, pulling her energy from her body, getting hot from her fear and her anger. He could understand everything from her blood; her mood, her health, her heat and to his surprise, her desire - the very soul of who she was. It took every ounce of his control to stop and he lowered her to her feet. She leaned back, shock writ large on her face. Her left hand automatically went to her throat finding the wound there and stemming the flow of the blood. She was shaking, whether from loss of blood or rage he cared not. She leaned back and with her free hand slapped his face hard. His head was pushed to one side from the blow, but now he turned it slowly to look her direct in the eyes and he languidly licked the essence of her off his lips. Furious, she made to slap him again, but as her hand approached his face he grabbed it with his own. He yanked her towards him and their eyes met.

Before they knew what was happening, their lips were bruising each other with the intensity of their kiss. He could smell the blood at her throat and he knew he wasn't sated; he wanted to consume her, get under her skin. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around him, and he stumbled backwards, half throwing, half falling with her onto the sofa behind him. He pawed at her body and she helped him free her of her clothes. She practically ripped his shirt off of him and he frantically undid his belt buckle. He was barely free of his pants when he thrust his cock inside of her. She cried out; a deep and throaty rasping sound, as intense in her lust as he was in his. She put her hand behind the back of his neck and pulled him down to her lips. He kissed he hurriedly as he plowed into her, fucking her as hard as anyone he ever had, whether human or vampire. The wound at her neck opened and he leaned down and licked at the oozing blood. She put her hand onto his ass and pulled him into her, meeting his rhythm with her own, moaning with desire.

When she came, she cried out. He followed, juddering for many seconds then collapsing on her body, the rush of her blood still running through his veins. She was breathing heavily and he lay with his head on her chest, matching the movements of her rise and fall. She got her breath back and suddenly the horror at what had happened set in. She began pushing at him, desperate to get out from under him.

"Get off, get off of me!" She said. He was so shocked at first that he didn't immediately move, but when he realized she was in genuine distress, he scrambled to get off of her. She jumped up and grabbed for her clothes, covering herself with shaking limbs.

"What have we done?" She said, pulling on her clothes as fast as she could. He was so stunned and amazed, that it took him a moment to realize she was about to run out on him. He jumped to his feet, quickly zipped up his fly and ran to her. When he turned her to face him, he was shocked at what he saw. Blood encrusted her hair and was all over her clothes and her body, her arms were bruised, her eyes were red and filled with tears and worst of all was the ugly, gaping wound at her throat. He reached out to stroke her face, regret heavy in his heart.

"Oh Elena, I am so sorry." He said. "I never meant for it to be like this." He had never been more sincere.

She pulled away from his touch.

"Don't come near me!" She said. She ran to his phone and picked it up. He stood there, wondering what to do, how to make this right.

"Jeremy?…. Yes I know what time it is!…. I need you to come get me from Stefan's…. No, I can't drive myself. Please, Jer! I need you." She said, the tears in her eyes threatening to spill. Her voice wavered with emotion. Damon stepped towards her, wanting to comfort her, but she put her hand up defensively and shook her head. He stood still, feeling terrible. Is this what he wanted?

"Elena, at least let me…."

"No!"

He sank into the chair behind him and looked at her, his body tense with anxiety. She stood there, crying silently, mascara running down her face, mingling with the blood.

They waited in uncomfortable silence like that for fifteen minutes; Elena neither moved nor sat down, just stood there in dying candlelight, as the flames extinguished themselves one by one. Damon looked at her the whole time, concern leaving a weary expression on his face.

Eventually they heard the sound of a car pulling into the drive. He jumped to his feet, but she was quick to run past him to the door. When she flung it open, Jeremy was already running towards the house, a stake in his hand. She ran barefoot towards him.

Damon walked towards the door, but did not reveal himself.

"Elena, what happened?" Jeremy was asking as she ran into his arms. "Is that blood? Did Stefan hurt you? Jesus Christ, I'll fucking kill him!"

"No Jeremy! Just get me out of here." She begged.

"I'll kill him!" He said trying to push past her, but she pushed back with all her strength and directed him towards the car. He looked at the house, utter incomprehension on his face.

Elena got in the car and reluctantly he followed. The engine fired and they roared away, their tires spinning on the gravel.

Damon closed the door and sank down behind it.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

* * *

They didn't hear from her for almost a week. Stefan couldn't understand why she wouldn't return his calls.

"Where the hell is she? Why doesn't she call back?" He said, pacing continuously. He took Damon's lack of an answer as lack of interest, even though that was as far from truth as it could possibly be.

Eventually he drove off to find her and when he couldn't, he came back in a sour mood and marched to his room, slamming the door.

Damon had to find her first.

When Damon's number came up on her phone, she immediately hit reject call. But he kept ringing back and eventually after the fifth time, she threw the phone in her trashcan. It kept ringing and ringing and she put her hands over her ears to drown out the sound. Eventually, she fished the phone out and answered the call.

"What!" She shouted, "What do you want? Leave me alone!"

"I'm outside, Elena. We need to talk." Damon said, his voice sad. She thundered down her stairs and flung open the front door. She turned straight around and ran back up to her room. He took a breath and followed her, as calmly as he could.

When he reached her bedroom, he knocked lightly and entered. She was sat crossed-legged on the bed in full-length pajamas that covered her arms and legs. Her face was turned down and she seemed so quiet and frail that she was almost unrecognizable from her former self. He went over to her and gently lifted her chin with his fingers, he turned her face towards him and his eyes flicked to her throat. There was a small square band-aid there, but the bruising bled out from under it. He took her hand and gently pushed her sleeve above her elbow, it was dark with purple and yellow bruises. He dropped the sleeve, but kept hold of her hand. He sat down on the bed beside her and bit down his anger and revulsion at what he himself had done.

"If I say I am sorry, it's just words. Just useless, hopeless words. But I don't have anything else." He reached out and with the back of his fingers very gently stroked her face.

"If I could take it back, I would. All of it. Everything I have ever done to hurt you." He squeezed her hand, but still she looked at the bed beneath her.

"Your blood, the blood I never had a right to take from you, it's a part of me now. It makes me function. You have forever changed me, my being, my make-up. We are deeply connected." He sighed. Words were so useless. He imagined what Eleanor might have said, 'Why, she's just a peach darling!' and somehow it made him feel worse. He looked at her and sighed lightly as tears began to stream down her face, he brushed them away with his thumb. "Don't cry, Elena. Please don't cry."

She sniffed and when the tears continued to pour, he frowned, and then pulled her into his body. She stiffened at first, but eventually she put her arms around him and let herself be rocked as he said '_Shh, shh… there, there.'_ When the tears had passed, she lay with her head on his lap, her body still and quiet once more. He stroked her hair and marveled at its softness. How could he ever have forgotten how fragile she was?

"Let Stefan love you." He said. "He is what I can never be." He leaned down and lay the lightest of kisses on her cheek, then lifted her head and slid out from under her, putting her gently back down on the bed. He hesitated, playing for time; he didn't want to take his leave of her and he knew it, what he wanted to do was to climb into that bed and hold her. Instead, he took her hand and kissed it.

She spoke.

"Damon, I want you to know something. What we did, was because I wanted it too. But what we have between us, is wrong… its poison." She swallowed. "We'd just end up hurting each other, our friends, our family - _your_ family, Damon." She said pointedly and he nodded. He understood.

He had hurt everyone he had ever loved, why would she be any different? But Elena was no weeping widow, no checkbook with benefits. And as he walked away, he felt he could hear Eleanor's laughter. Maybe this was her curse, what she really bequeathed to him along with the money he never deserved; she had left him her pain - the pain of love that would never be reciprocated, never be wanted or desired, where passion and need would only ever lead to emotional destitution and misery. And maybe somehow it was Shelley's gift to Stefan too, as he would never have Elena's whole heart - a little bit of it would always belong to someone else, someone who had her blood running through his body.

This was to be his life now, this torment, this existence in the shadows. He may not be hanging from a beam in a cheap motel room, a stranger's belt around his neck, but the nature of it was the same. It was over. So over.


End file.
